


Past, Present, Future

by valenlimes



Series: The Colour of Love [1]
Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Childhood Friends, Childhood Sweethearts, Dancer Jaemin, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Multi, OCD, Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, Polyamory, Therapy, norenmin
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-03
Updated: 2018-09-03
Packaged: 2019-07-06 05:57:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,938
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15879951
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/valenlimes/pseuds/valenlimes
Summary: Jeno relives his memories when something from his past comes back to save him.





	Past, Present, Future

**Author's Note:**

> Hey guys, so this is the back story for a story i posted a while back called 24 Hours. idk why but i felt like giving some context as to how they actually met. 
> 
> its very wishy-washy and i wrote it in less than a day. 
> 
> keep in mind this is set before 24 Hours so yeah.
> 
> enjoy!

He met Renjun first. 

Flashes of crooked teeth and colourful classrooms echoed across Jeno’s consciousness when he recalled how they first met. 

Renjun had sat down in the seat next to him on the first day of fifth grade as he introduced himself in broken Korean. 

Jeno knew he was special from the moment he first laid eyes on him, but he didn’t know he was special in more ways than one.   
There had been multiple talks about Renjun. Jeno was forced to sit through lecture after lecture on treating Renjun the same as all the other kids even though Jeno didn’t see how he was any different.   
Sure, he had weird habits, but didn’t everyone? 

Fifth grade was a strange year for Jeno. So was the sixth grade, and seventh and eighth, but he was making it work.   
Crooked teeth were straightened out and Jeno finally learnt the reason why Renjun didn’t come to school on Tuesdays and Fridays. 

Saturdays were good days.  
In fact, they were Jeno’s favourite day of the week. 

It was the day that at 2:25 PM sharp, Renjun would knock three times on Jeno’s bedroom door and announce his arrival with his slowly improving accent. 

At the time, Jeno didn’t know it was love. The fluttering in his chest had been there forever, but he couldn’t remember what forever felt like until Renjun had walked into his classroom back in fifth grade. 

Sleepovers were customary for their friendship. There was one every Saturday night, one every birthday and one every New Year’s Eve. Jeno wanted one at Christmas too, but Renjun wasn’t allowed.

He knew the routine. He liked the routine, in fact, because it made Renjun calm. They would eat the same meal every time he came over, and Renjun would count every pea on his plate before eating them individually. He watched as Renjun would painstakingly cut the chicken breast into one-centimetre cubes before putting them in his mouth and chewing.   
Every two weeks, Jeno would talk to Ms Kim, a nice lady who Jeno had met when he first met Renjun. over the space of half an hour, she would ask Jeno questions about Renjun and Jeno would answer to the best of his ability while she would not and scribble notes into a notebook.

Jeno didn’t mind the way Renjun would clean his already spotless room for him before bed. Whenever it took less time for Renjun to go to bed than normal, Jeno would feel proud in knowing that he had made his room exactly the way that Renjun liked it. 

Like I said, Jeno didn’t know it was love until Renjun left. 

_He went back to China,_ his mother told him. _There is better treatment over there, Jeno. It’s for his own good._

Jeno knew. He knew China was the right thing for Renjun. 

He would never speak to Renjun himself after that, but they would receive an email once a month about how he was doing from Renjun’s mother. 

At the beginning of tenth grade, the emails stopped. Jeno would go to his computer on the 5th of the month to check his inbox for another update of Renjun’s condition, but it never came. It wasn’t there on the 6th or the 7th either. 

Jeno held out hope and checked his inbox on the 5th of the next month too. Still nothing. 

In the end, he stopped checking and the 5th of every month became a regular day just like the rest. 

 

But then he met Jaemin. 

Jaemin was different. he didn’t come with counsellors visits or reminders to always keep your shoelaces tied. 

He was different, but not unexpected. 

Jaemin walked into his life halfway through year eleven, sporting a black eye and stitches.   
Jeno was fascinated by him, as was everyone else in school. 

The half-baked excuse of “I ran into a telephone pole,” wasn’t fooling anyone on campus, and soon rumours started to circulate about bad boy Na Jaemin and his violent tendencies.

Jeno found him hidden behind the bike sheds crying from the cruelty of other people’s words. 

The rest of the school never found out the real reason why Jaemin was injured, but Jeno knew it was because he had slipped while attempting a quadruple pirouette in ballet class and hit his head on the corner of the barre. 

It was a learning process, knowing Jaemin. He was the kind of person that wore their heart on their sleeve and their head in the clouds. He relied on Jeno to keep him grounded on multiple occasion, and likewise, Jeno relied on him to inject some colour into his otherwise grey life.

Jaemin had moved across the country to attend a dance school. The training process was long and gruelling and Jeno often witnessed as Jaemin nursed his aching limbs and a crushed ego. 

As the seasons changed and preliminary trials rolled around, Jaemin dropped out of high school. 

“I am going full time at the dance studio, Jeno.” His smile told Jeno all he needed to know. Jeno smiled too, slightly forced but he trusted Jaemin to make the right decision. 

He was scared at first, that Jaemin would leave him like others in the past.   
However, Jaemin seemed to have a different idea. 

It was a weird relationship, filled with mildly flirtatious comments and lingering gazes on lips, but they made it work.

It wasn’t until graduation when Jaemin had come to watch him get his diploma that he finally decided to do something about it.   
It felt nice, this sense of security. Jeno had something constant in his life, something to call his. 

Through the rush of applying for university and Jeno completing his final exams, Jaemin was always there.  
Moving into his own apartment at the age of 18 so his parents could move back to their hometown and Jaemin could stay and continue at his dance studio, Jeno was the only one he had. 

They were together through thick and thin, Jaemin helping Jeno figure out what he wanted to do with his life and Jeno applauding in the audience as Jaemin made his debut as a dancer for the company.

But still, there were times when it wasn’t easy. Jeno’s road through medical school wasn’t a gentle one, and there was days and nights when it seemed like the loneliness in his heart would never end. 

Jaemin would come to him in those times, filled with assuring words and confessions of love. Jeno smiled through his tears at the one who had stuck by him, but he could help but remember the one that had got away.

As the train screamed past, Jeno crouched on the floor of the grimy subway station. It was the rare occasion where Jaemin wasn’t there and Jeno was splitting at the seams. 

After five sleepless nights, he had forced his way through the mountain of school work set by his professors. He had tried, he really did, to keep the thoughts from creeping in. At moments like these, he wished he still had Ms Kim the counsellor to talk to, but, like many other things in Jeno’s life, she was never his to keep. 

So, there he sat, rocking back and forth as he clutched the binder full of neatly printed assignments, and cried.   
The thunder of leather shoes and high heels strode past the quivering Jeno, paying no heed as a briefcase crashed into the side of his head. 

Jeno only cried harder because he was so lonely. In the sea of people crowding the subway, Jeno was alone and he hated it.   
He hated that he felt like this.  
Hated that it was unfair to Jaemin, who had done nothing but love and support him for years.   
Hated that he wanted more.   
Hated that he still thought of the boy with crooked teeth and weird habits on long nights when the insomnia became too much. 

He couldn’t call Jaemin now, it would worry him too much.   
Instead, he wiped his snotty nose and picked himself back up off the dirt-stained tiles of the subway floor.   
His train had come and gone, and Jeno was stranded for another half-hour until the next one arrived. 

He looked at his phone - 10:32 AM on the 5th of August. 

There was a notification in red for his email application. Jeno clicked it, shaking hands as the nostalgia hit home.   
Some part of him wished it would be Renjun, a sign that he was okay after the six years of silence.   
Jeno sighed when he saw the contact information – a junk main coupon for half-priced pizza. 

He shouldn’t have assumed. Of course, it was too good to be true. He had a sudden urge to throw his phone against the wall and run. 

“Jeno?” A small voice called from the back of his mind. He mentally told it to shut up, he didn’t need the thoughts at a time like this.

“Jeno?” The voice came again. a finger tapped his shoulder. Familiar almond eyes and golden smile filled up his vision. Jeno cried again. 

Like a boomerang, Renjun had returned. The years alone faded away at the moment as Jeno stared at the man in front of him.   
His teeth were straight now, and he was playing with a rubber band on his left wrist identical to the one he used to constantly snap as a kid. 

“You came back.” He breathed, immense urge to pull the smaller male into his arms. He moved forward but stopped himself, remembering that he wasn’t supposed to touch Renjun unless absolutely necessary. Renjun didn’t like the germs.   
So, there he stood, arms out, gaping like the idiot he was. 

Jaemin would have laughed. 

Renjun just smiled, stepped forward and met him halfway. 

The smell of Renjun’s shampoo and delicate arms was all Jeno could focus on as he held the boy he loved tight. 

There was a pang in his chest – guilt? Yes. Guilt and sadness. 

There were so many unanswered questions; why was he here? Why did he leave?

Like when they were children, Renjun came with pre-programmed cautionary warnings.   
This time, though, they were different.   
Renjun could touch people.  
Renjun could eat without using a ruler.   
Renjun could live. 

He was called into a counsellor's office again, not Ms Kim, but someone equally as sympathetic and condescending. 

Renjun was better, by their standards. Jeno sat through a lecture on things he already knew, but he didn’t care about the stuff they were telling him. The only thing that mattered was that Renjun was there, and Jeno was going to hold him for as long as the universe allowed. 

Months on, Jaemin would meet Renjun. 

He knew about the mysterious shadow of the past that was Renjun. Jeno had mentioned him in passing a few times throughout the course of their relationship. What he didn’t know was the commitment Jeno held towards Renjun. and so, like Jeno had done so many times in the past for him, Jaemin made a pact with himself to try.   
There isn’t much to be left to the imagination, it seems. Everything was transparent from the beginning, and although there were some bumps along the way, Jaemin learned to know Renjun like Jeno did. 

The counsellor sessions Jeno attended became a regular part of Jaemin’s life too, as the two became a three. 

Renjun had returned, Jaemin had stayed, and the hole in Jeno’s heart had been filled by the love of the two most important people in the world. 

His past, his present and their future.

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading! 
> 
> make sure to leave comments and kudos if you enjoyed <3


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